


A Shared History

by literaryspell



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Multi, future Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-23
Updated: 2010-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-23 04:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryspell/pseuds/literaryspell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco, Snape, and Harry walk into a bar…</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Shared History

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to [](http://seatbeltdrivein.livejournal.com/profile)[**seatbeltdrivein**](http://seatbeltdrivein.livejournal.com/) , [](http://keppiehed.livejournal.com/profile)[**keppiehed**](http://keppiehed.livejournal.com/) , and [](http://ratherbsailing.livejournal.com/profile)[**ratherbsailing**](http://ratherbsailing.livejournal.com/) for their beta work on this!

"You're the one who chose the place!"

"Blame it on a fit of nostalgia," Snape said, looking around the Hog's Head like he was a victim of kidnapping rather than a willing patron.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Nostalgic, are we?"

"Indeed."

"For…?"

"Why, don't you remember, Harry?" Snape's tone was sarcastic, but his eyes were almost playful. "This is where I took you on our first date."

Harry frowned and then flushed when he caught the double entendre. _Took him_ , indeed. If one could call yanking down Harry's trousers in a booth, making him sit on two of his fingers, and submitting him to the best hand jobs of his _life_ taking him… then, yes.

Yes, indeed.

Harry laughed and Snape chuckled, both thrown back to the memory of almost five years before. Things were both better and worse, as often happens with time. The things that were once cute or at least bearable were now cause for arguments. But the arguments were better fought and more quickly ended. It was a trade neither really minded.

"Speaking of nostalgia," Harry said, raising his eyebrows and whistling. Snape followed his gaze, and then his eyebrows followed Harry's to the ceiling as he saw what Harry had.

"He looks… well." Snape forced himself to look away, only to see Harry do the same.

"He looks more than well. He looks bloody fit."

"Then, he always did, didn’t he?"

Their eyes met across the table. A silent conversation occurred, one that followed the same path as a few spoken conversations from the past years. Then Harry's lips curled into a grin and Snape's eyes darkened.

"Oi!" Harry called, making every head in the room turn toward them. "Malfoy!"

Draco stiffened in his seat at the bar. His slender fingers clenched the glass of mead—he must have begun drinking that in the past five years; neither Snape nor Harry could recall him ever having done so before. But he turned, his eyes widening when he saw the two on them.

Two months after the defeat of Voldemort, Harry had found himself at Malfoy Manor with a wand and a demand. Draco had taken the wand and responded to the demand. Once Harry had his answers—though those answers would never be enough to explain all of Draco's misdeeds—they'd started on a turbulent and admittedly unhealthy affair that included secrecy, physical fights, and sex that could have burned houses down.

Like a grease fire, their relationship had left brutal scars only worsened by any effort to heal them. But ones that Harry didn’t mind anymore—in fact, he even enjoyed poking at them, testing their sensitivity.

Two years after the epic ending of that ill-advised relationship, Snape had found himself with a potions assistant too big for his britches—at least that would explain why Draco had removed them in front of Snape one fateful day.

With Snape, Draco had been a different person. He no longer found fault in the smallest things and started fights just because he could. If it hadn’t been too much of a stretch, one might have said he'd changed.

Still, it was too much, too soon. Unlike Harry's scars, Draco had left Snape with an all-over abrasion. It had faded in time, but the memory was still enough to make him cringe.

Then Harry and Snape had found each other, and the story had ended.

Or perhaps, as it now seemed, not.

Draco rose and approached the table, tension and suspicion in every muscle.

"Potter. Severus. It's…" He seemed to struggle for a moment. "Good to see you."

"Have a seat," Harry said with a grin, receiving a kick from Snape for laying it on so thick.

"I shouldn't…"

"You must," Snape insisted.

Draco looked between the two. Harry's grin he remembered well. It reminded him of after sex and before fighting.

Snape's voice, he also hadn’t put from his mind. It brought to memory… during sex and after fighting.

He sat.

The three drank in silence for a while. When all three glasses were empty, Harry left to get more.

"How have you been?" Draco asked, fidgeting a little. He always seemed to around Snape.

"We've been very well, Draco."

 _We_. He'd almost had that with both of them.

"I'm glad. I've also been very—"

"Draco."

Draco lowered his head. Snape had always known when he was lying.

"I've missed you," he said, and it didn’t feel wrong because he would have said the same thing to Harry if Snape were the one at the bar.

"We've missed you, also." Snape's hand gripped his shoulder for a moment and returned to the tabletop.

The words confused Draco. _They_ 'd missed him? It almost seemed like they missed him together instead of separately. It brought forth way too many late-night imaginings of not just Draco and Severus or Draco and Potter but Draco and both and them together and any and all variations therein.

Draco coughed.

When Harry returned, he put Draco's drink down and squeezed his shoulder just like Snape had. His fingers were thicker and warmer and achingly familiar.

Draco couldn’t be there. Not with them, not between and beside them and their perfect relationship—they who were to each other everything that he hadn’t been able to be. They who had found in each other everything he'd lacked.

He began to stand, full pint notwithstanding, but like the team they now were, Snape and Harry each grabbed an arm and sat him back into his seat. He didn’t struggle very much, it was true.

They continued to drink without speaking.

It was funny. Though they'd fought and fought and fucked and fought, things with Harry had always been easy. Maybe that was why he'd been so eager to mess it up. He could see now, with perfect vision in retrospect, that he'd destroyed them on purpose because he'd been scared and stupid.

Things with Snape had been harder. Snape had demanded more and put up with less. They'd eventually broken up because Draco didn’t think he could give all that Snape wanted, when now he saw that Snape had only asked for the best of Draco, something Draco had hidden or maybe hadn’t realised existed.

Damn them for making him think about it.

Harry and Snape shared another look. It wasn’t a challenge this time. They saw, now, that Draco was both the same and different. He was lonely. He was frightened. He was so far inside himself he might never see out.

Except now it wasn’t out of selfishness but rather disillusionment. It was difficult, seeing that you aren’t what you should be, especially when you've no idea how to change it.

"You look good, Draco." Harry's voice was kind but his eyes were hungry.

"You've changed," added Snape.

It was almost a question.

"Yes," Draco said, eyes on his drink. "Yes."

Words. Words were so powerful. They did so much—in one tone, Snape could destroy or create. With one sentence, Harry could give up or give in. They'd all three of them said words to hurt, to help, to start, and to end.

But Harry's following words did something none ever had.

They gave him hope.

"Come home with us."  


The end.  



End file.
